Taking Over Stalled Construction Projects

Unless it is exempt or owner-built, a new home in BC has to be registered with BC Housing and enrolled in home warranty insurance before a building permit is issued, and the coverage has to stay continuous for construction to carry on legally. A home can be de-enrolled when the contract between the owner and the builder is cancelled, and a de-enrolled home cannot be built on until it is enrolled again (BC Housing Regulatory Bulletin No. 10).

While a custom home is in its early stages, BC Housing lets the owner hire a new licensed residential builder who registers and enrols the home, become licensed as a general contractor, or apply for an Owner Builder Authorization. Whoever enrols the home takes on warranty responsibility for all the work the previous builder arranged as well as the work to finish it. Further into construction there are fewer options, because only one person can be responsible for managing all or substantially all of a new home's construction.

Re-enrolling a home can bring costs from the warranty provider, including re-inspections, administrative fees and possibly higher enrolment fees, and the policy may exclude design, labour or materials the owner supplied. BC Housing tells builders and owners to settle with the warranty provider which work was done before the contract ended and which after. The New Homes Registry shows a home's enrolment and any de-enrolment.

These rules apply to new homes; a suite built inside an existing house needs no home warranty. ProStyle carries Travelers 2-5-10 home warranty insurance on the new homes we build: two years on labour and materials, five years on the building envelope and ten years on the structure.

Every Township of Langley building permit is issued on three conditions: construction starts within six months of issue, it is not discontinued or suspended for more than six months, and it is finished within two years. If any one is broken, the permit lapses (Langley Building Bylaw No. 4642, section 5.11).

A lapsed permit can be renewed for a fee when the scope has not changed and the conditions it was granted under still hold. If the scope, the BC Building Code or a Township bylaw has changed since then, the Building Inspector can treat it as a new application with new fees.

The Township's fees bylaw charges for transferring a permit to a new permit holder, lets a valid permit transfer on a change of owner or registered professional when no changes to it are proposed, and makes the new permit holder responsible for any bond or security.

Inspections are booked in a MyTownship account linked to the permit by its access code, and each booking needs the business licence number of the trade doing the work. The registered owner, or someone holding the Township's Agent Authorization form, can ask for the permit drawings through a building records search.

A City of Langley building permit expires if work does not start within six months of issue or is discontinued for 12 months, and every permit expires two years after issue, or six months for a suite or a demolition (Building and Plumbing Bylaw No. 2498, section 13).

A permit that reaches its two-year limit without a final inspection can be renewed by the Building Official for one more year on payment of a fee, with a second year available for a further fee. A building permit can also be transferred to another person once the Building Official approves it. The City charges $200 plus applicable taxes for a transfer or a renewal (Schedule 4).

Before the first inspection, the owner gives the Building Official a list of every contractor, subcontractor and trade on the job, keeps it up to date, and makes sure each one holds a City of Langley business licence. For a new home, the City issues no permit without proof of home warranty insurance and a licensed residential builder, unless the owner is exempt as an owner builder.

A site where workers of two or more employers work at the same time is a multiple-employer workplace under the Workers Compensation Act. Its prime contractor is the contractor or other person who signs a written agreement with the owner to take the role, and without such an agreement, the owner is the prime contractor (section 13).

The prime contractor coordinates the health and safety activities of every employer and worker on site and keeps a system in place for complying with the rules, and each employer names its site supervisor to the prime contractor (section 24). The owner gives the employer or prime contractor the information the owner knows about hazards on the site (section 25).

A Notice of Project is required when labour and materials are estimated at more than $100,000, when a professional engineer designed any part of the project other than pre-engineered components, or in one of the other cases the regulation lists, such as a worker having to enter an excavation other than a trench over 1.2 m deep. The owner or the prime contractor must make sure WorkSafeBC receives it at least 24 hours before work begins, naming both of them, and post a copy on site for the whole project (OHS Regulation section 20.2).

WorkSafeBC also tells homeowners to get a clearance letter for each contractor they hire, because a homeowner can be held liable for premiums a contractor has not paid. ProStyle holds a WorkSafeBC account in good standing.

Abel Strujenco, our founder, holds the builder's licence the work runs under. Randy Ferchoff, our Director of Operations, is your project manager, and Derek Ferchoff supervises our sites day to day.

Your own JobTread login holds the live schedule, daily logs of who was on site and what was done, progress photos, invoices and digital change orders. We carry $5 million in liability coverage through Federated Insurance and are members of RenoMark, the Canadian Home Builders' Association and HAVAN.